TSA says agents followed protocolYet the TSA is just flat out lying saying this never happened. The TSA has repeatedly been caught lying blatantly, they have zero credibility and everything they say can and should be assumed to be a lie. - ChrisWith age come such things as catheters, colostomy bags and adult diapers. Now add another indignity to getting old -- having to drop your pants and show these things to a complete stranger.

Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at Kennedy Airport. One claimed she was forced to lower her pants and underwear in front of an agent so that her back brace could be inspected. Another said agents made her pull down her waistband to show her colostomy bag.

While not confirming some of the details, the TSA said a preliminary review shows officers followed the agency’s procedures in both cases. But experts said the potential for such searches will increase as the U.S. population ages and receives prosthetics and other medical devices, some of which cannot go through screening machines.

Servicemen leaving the US military are forced to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, high unemployment and a loss of camaraderie while they were serving. (File Photo)

The deteriorating US economy and soaring unemployment rates has left US soldiers and veterans returning from Iraq with no choice but to grapple with a bleak and uncertain future.

US Defense cuts have also cast doubt on the possibility of troops securing military jobs inside the country.

“Right now the unemployment rate nationwide is through the roof," said Staff Sergeant Brett Bolton, an Air Force truck driver who has served for six years.

Uncertainty about the future has taken the joy out of being relieved of military duty for most troops.

"I've done my six years. I feel like I've done enough and I want to go back to the civilian world, but right now it's not looking too good for me,” VOA website quoted Bolton as saying on Saturday.

In an earlier interview with Press TV, Edward Spannaus, Legal Affairs editor in Washington D.C, had described the situation of returning soldiers and veterans as a national disgrace, saying that budget cuts aimed at saving the near collapse US economy would only make the situation worse.

"Young men and women join the army these days precisely because it's the only job they can get. The people tend to come from the poor layers of the society and overwhelmingly from the poor states in the country," Spannaus said.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan is higher than the national average. Their rate of unemployment is rated at about 12 percent as opposed to the 9 percent nationwide average.

The youngest of veterans, aged 18 to 24, had a 30 percent jobless rate in October; a drastic hike from the 18 percent of last year.

There are currently about 39,000 US soldiers in Iraq. According to a 2008 bilateral security accord, known as the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), all the US troops are required to leave the country by the end of this year.

Bill O'Reilly attacks a journalist with his umbrella because he asked him some questions. After hitting the man with his umbrella, Bill tells the police the man was assaulting him and tries to get them to arrest him! The police apparently told him you can't press charges on someone who never laid a hand on you, to which Bill was apparently outraged!

After you watch that video, check out this video of Bill O'Reilly lying about this incident with an "ex-police detective" who says Bill had every right to assault the man! It's one of the most bizarre backwards interviews I've ever seen, I wonder if idiot neo-cons watching are going to go around assaulting people for videotaping them while thinking they're fully within the law!

Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.

The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad Salem, should be used, the informer said.

The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings that Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as being in a far better position than previously known to foil the February 26th bombing of New York City's tallest towers.

The explosion left six people dead, more than a thousand people injured, and damages in excess of half-a-billion dollars. Four men are now on trial in Manhattan Federal Court [on charges of involvement] in that attack.

Mr. Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian Army officer, was used by the Government [of the United States] to penetrate a circle of Muslim extremists who are now charged in two bombing cases: the World Trade Center attack, and a foiled plot to destroy the United Nations, the Hudson River tunnels, and other New York City landmarks. He is the crucial witness in the second bombing case, but his work for the Government was erratic, and for months before the World Trade Center blast, he was feuding with the F.B.I.

Supervisor `Messed It Up'

After the bombing, he resumed his undercover work. In an undated transcript of a conversation from that period, Mr. Salem recounts a talk he had had earlier with an agent about an unnamed F.B.I. supervisor who, he said, "came and messed it up."

"He requested to meet me in the hotel," Mr. Salem says of the supervisor.

"He requested to make me to testify, and if he didn't push for that, we'll be going building the bomb with a phony powder, and grabbing the people who was involved in it. But since you, we didn't do that."

The transcript quotes Mr. Salem as saying that he wanted to complain to F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington about the Bureau's failure to stop the bombing, but was dissuaded by an agent identified as John Anticev.

Mr. Salem said Mr. Anticev had told him,

"He said, I don't think that the New York people would like the things out of the New York Office to go to Washington, D.C."

Another agent, identified as Nancy Floyd, does not dispute Mr. Salem's account, but rather, appears to agree with it, saying of the `New York people':

"Well, of course not, because they don't want to get their butts chewed."

Months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of “terrorism” that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review.* The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode“constitutional and statutory due process protections” and would “authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.”

Biden himself draws parallels between his 1995 bill and its 2001 cousin. “I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill,” he said when the Patriot Act was being debated, according to the New Republic, which described him as “the Democratic Party’s de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism.”

On February 10, 1995, a counterterrorism bill drafted by the ClintonAdministration was introduced in the Senate as S. 390 and in the House ofRepresentatives as H.R. 896.

The Clinton bill is a mixture of: provisions eroding constitutional andstatutory due process protections, selective federalization — on politicalgrounds — of state crimes (minus state due process rules), discreditedideas from the Reagan and Bush Administrations, and the extension of some ofthe worst elements of crime bills of the recent past.

The legislation would:

1. authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes toinvestigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations;

2. repeal the ancient provision barring the U.S. military from civilianlaw enforcement;

* Note: The CNET article contains a typographical error, using the word “detection” instead of “detention” in the sentence: “allowing permanent detection of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review”. Not only does this make no sense, but a review of the bill confirms that it provided for permanent detention.